Christopher Samuel "Kit" Bond (6 March 1939-13 May 2025) was the Republican Governor of Missouri from 8 January 1973 to 10 January 1977 (succeeding Warren E. Hearnes and preceding Joseph P. Teasdale) and from 12 January 1981 to 14 January 1985 (succeeding Teasdale and preceding John Ashcroft) and a US Senator from 3 January 1987 to 3 January 2011 (succeeding Thomas Eagleton and preceding Roy Blunt).
Biography[]
Christopher Samuel Bond was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1939, and he practiced law in Washington DC from 1964 to 1967 before returning to his hometown of Mexico in 1967. He narrowly failed to be elected to the US House of Representatives in 1968, but he went on to serve as State Auditor from 1971 to 1973. Bond was elected Governor in 1972 in spite of concerns over his residency qualifications, as he had been either studying, practicing law, or clerking in several other states. Bond was initially a moderate conservative who supported the Equal Rights Amendment and rescinded the Extermination Order against the Mormons issued by Governor Lilburn Boggs in 1838. Bond also served in the US Senate from 1987 to 2011, and he supported free trade and oil drilling and opposed campaign finance reform and same-sex marriage. He retired in 2010.